Androids continue to gain in the enterprise

Use of Android smartphones in the enterprise realm is on the rise, largely at the expense of the iPhone, according to a report issued this week by Good Technology.

The report found that 32% of enterprise mobile devices activated in the second quarter of 2014 on Good's technology platform were Android-based, a 5% increase from Q1. Apple's devices maintained a considerable lead, at 67%, but that figure was down a commensurate 5% from the previous quarter.

Android tablet activations continued to be a marginal presence in the enterprise, however, making up only 2% of new devices, compared to 30% for Android smartphones, 15% for iPads, and 51% for iPhones.

The three sectors to see the biggest bump in overall enterprise mobile device use in this report were financial services, manufacturing and business and professional services. The former was the biggest vertical for mobility use in the report, accounting for 32% of all activations.

Clear trends emerged for the type of use to which enterprises are putting their mobile devices, as well. Overall, document management was the most popular business app on tablets by a wide margin, and by mobile devices overall by a somewhat smaller one. For smartphones, secure messaging was the biggest app, followed by document management and custom apps.

Good Technology, which boasts 5,000 global customers, compiles its statistics from users of its own platform, which means -- among other things -- that it doesn't include statistics for mobile devices or software that aren't compatible with it.

So while Good's numbers should be taken with a grain of salt, it's worth noting that they closely mirror consumer trends in smartphone purchasing -- IDC's most recent numbers for the first quarter of 2014 show gains being made by Android in roughly the same proportion as iOS device sales have declined.

Community Comments

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